"Well, sorra such a house I ever was in," said Bridget, scandalised.
"Never mind, Bridget dear," said Sylvia, who had temporarily lost her taste for sharp argument with Bridget. "I suppose I was born old."
"Listen to her," cried Bridget, "an' she wid the lightest feet, aye, an' the purtiest face in the barony! Between you and Miss Pamela, me heart's fairly bruk. There's Miss Pamela, that ought to be goin' to be married a week from next Tuesday, goin' round as mopy as a chicken wid the pip. I never seen such goin's on anywhere I was."
"It certainly is time," said Sylvia again, "that something should happen, and, short of marrying myself, Bridget, I'll do anything to bring it about."
"Indeed, then Mr. St. Quintin's a pleasant young gentleman," said Bridget, broadly smiling, "though an imp of mischief. 'Tis meself'll not forget in a hurry how he whipped the steps from undher Grady whin he was pickin' the morello cherries, an' never purtended he heard him bawlin' melia murther, an' the ould rogue, as he was contrivin' to slip down by the trunk, caught by a twig in his breeches an' held there! As I said to Mr. St. Quintin, I hoped he thought then on poor Mary that's gone, that often he made suffer, the crathur!"
"I thought you were going to marry him, Bridget," said Sylvia, with the same languid interest.
"Och, then, heaven forgive you, Miss Sylvia. Sure them was only my jokes. Not but what he axed me. 'The mischief bother you, man,' says I. 'Is it havin' me commit murther you'd be? Why, sure I couldn't keep me hands off you if I was lookin' at you every day, an' then I'd be tried an' hung for it, maybe.'"
"Well, I'm glad you're not going to marry him under the circumstances," said Sylvia. "But, all the same, it is time some of us made a stir."
And even then one thing that was to disturb the current of their lives was on its way.
The very morning after Sylvia's conversation with Bridget there was a large square envelope for Mr. Graydon, which somewhat exercised his youngest daughter's imagination.